Certain tactics are overused then abused then penalized, with link builders running around trying to undo damage from techniques that worked well but maybe weren’t 100 percent safe ideas.

What follows is a list and discussion of 131 (legitimate) link building tactics, some of which worked just as well 10 years ago as they do today.

Start With the Basics

Ah, the basics…these are the tactics that can form the foundations of any link building campaign, no matter what your niche or budget. The basics don’t tend to change and they’re critical to understand so that you can move on to more advanced and creative techniques.

1. Email a webmaster, asking for a link to your site. Personalizing your emails is critical here (think about how many emails you get every day) so make sure you’re actually emailing webmasters who have sites that are relevant to yours, and, even more importantly, make sure that your site is actually link-worthy. We’re all busy people and no one wants to waste time so if it’s not a good place for a link to you, don’t waste anyone’s time.

2. Use the phone. Picking up the phone to do the same thing as listed above is also acceptable for those of us who aren’t averse to having to speak to another human being for work matters.

3. Find great sources for links by simply searching the web for your desired target keywords. Whereas even a year ago I would have said that sites appearing high in the SERPs would be good sites to contact, due to the truly amazing amount of spam and hacked sites that appear high up for certain search terms, I’d say you need to visit the sites with a very careful eye. Whereas we used to think that getting a link from any source was a good idea, after Google started notifying webmasters that they had bad links which should be removed, I’d say to be very, very critical.

4. Use social media to find great sources for links. There are loads of tools that can help with this (my favorite is Icerocket) but simply going to Twitter and searching for a keyword in the same way that you search through an engine’s results can show you some fantastic link opportunities.

5. Make the link negotiation personal. Even if you’ve emailed to ask for a link, don’t be opposed to speaking to this benevolent webmaster by phone, or in person if that works out. Sometimes this personal connection can be what secures your link.

6. Know what makes a site a good linking partner. If you’ve been building links for a long time, you can probably easily glance at a site and, in under a minute, determine whether it would be a beneficial linking partner. However, for the rest of the world, it’s not so easy. Know what makes me like a site more than anything else? Social love. If I see a blog post that is relevant to my topic, has ongoing relevant comments, a decent amount of tweets/likes/shares, that’s a good site to me because I’m thinking about traffic.

7. Think about traffic! Think about sites that can send you relevant traffic, not just sites that might improve your rankings. If you can see yourself going to that site, seeing your link, clicking on it, and thinking “nice, this is just what I wanted!” then yes, that’s a good traffic-generating site most likely.

8. Stop thinking about rankings and Google’s Toolbar PageRank. Rankings definitely matter but considering the amount of places that can send you traffic (like social media sites, sites that link to you, sites where you guest post, etc.) it’s silly to rely on rankings in one engine. Stop thinking that a link from a site with a PR of 0 won’t help you, and that a link from a site with a PR of 5 definitely will.

9. Check to see what your competitors are doing. While this should never be a definitive way to define your own link plan, it’s valuable to see what works for others in your niche. Just don’t think that you can mimic a competitor’s link profile and do as well as they have. It’s definitely not that simple.

10. Make sure your site isn’t hurting you. Many times we think that with the right links, our sites will soar in the rankings, even though they are usability nightmares with nothing real to offer anyone that can’t be found elsewhere.

11. Check out the sites that link to you and find the sites they link to. Sounds convoluted, but it’s a great way to figure out other good sites to contact.

12. If you get a link from a fantastic site that is exactly the type of site you want to link to you, after congratulating yourself on this achievement, do some digging and find out who else links to that site. Those may also be good sites to contact for links.

13. Search for sites that should link to you but don’t. If you find a blog post entitled “Top 100 companies that sell green widgets” and you sell green widgets but aren’t listed, contact the webmaster and point this out. Nicely, of course.

14. Don’t automate if you can help it. There are times when automation can be a lifesaver but when it comes to reviewing a site and making a personal connection that leads to a link, I’d make the decision to do it all manually.

15. If you receive a negative response, regard this as very important, as these refusals could be telling you something. Perhaps your site isn’t as link-worthy as you thought it was. If a webmaster takes the time to email you back and say no thanks, ask him or her why. Maybe you’ll uncover an error that is glaring to everyone but yourself. Regard this as a fantastic usability opportunity. Also, if a webmaster points out something fixable and you fix it, maybe you’ll get that link in the end.

16. If you move your site to a new URL, surely you’ll 301 it but for the maximum linky benefit, do yourself a favor and contact the sites (especially the really good ones) that link to you to point out your new URL.

17. Sponsor something. Sponsor a charity, a contest, an afterschool club at your kid’s school, anything.

18. Learn to love the nofollowed link. There’s more to life than link juice. Nofollows can be amazing for traffic so if someone says yes, I’ll link to you but I have to nofollow it, say thanks.

19. See who links to YouTube videos that relate to your industry and ask them for a link.

20. In that same line of thought, see who links to infographics in your niche. Ask them for a link.

Become a Content Provider

If you aren’t putting content out there for consumption, you stand little chance of acquiring links. People use the web to gather information, and if you aren’t giving it to them, someone else (your competitor) definitely is.

I know that many people who are fantastic communicators and great thinkers often don’t believe that they can write anything of value. However, as we’ll point out to start off, practice is the key here.

21. Write something even if you’re not yet very good at it. The more you practice, the better you’ll be.

22. Write something really, really good, something that no one else has yet written. Put a new spin on what you want to say so that it will grab people’s attention. For example, if you’re writing about pest control (and for the record I do not work with any pest control clients), then maybe write a piece about how you’re never more than a few feet away from a spider. Shivers.

22. Think about an ongoing content plan and write so that it’s easy to write a follow-up piece. Series are great, regular guest post slots are great, and knowing what your “thing” is can definitely be great. For example, for my agency’s blog, we’ve decided that we want to show how we think about links. We have a group of employees who are from extremely diverse backgrounds and we’ve had a lot of success with blog posts that do more than tell you how to contact a webmaster and get a link. Our “thing” is creative thinking about what we do for a living.

23. Produce something other than just textual content. Do an infographic or create a comic. Produce videos where you do things like interview people in your industry (hey, look how far it took Jonathan Allen!) Start a weekly online radio show. That kind of non-text-based content does get links.

24. Actively pursue new opportunities for contributing to your industry. Maybe you can moderate a forum or help curate a weekly newsletter. Maybe you can provide fantastic answers on Quora.

25. Find something that’s missing and jump into giving it to us. No forum for your industry? Start one. Looking for a list of all the preschools in your town but can’t find one? Do the research, write it, and put it out there for everyone to see and link to.

26. Do one major article that will become the definitive resource for something and that can be (and will be) updated on a semi-annual or annual basis. Think Rae Hoffman-Dolan’s amazing series “Link Building With The Experts.”

27. Create a curated list for something. Think about your industry and what you have trouble keeping up with.

28. Produce a monthly “best of” series to recap what’s happened in your industry in case people missed something.

29. Reference your older articles when they’re relevant. Michael Gray does a great job of this with his archived posts tweets.

30. Make sure that when you do promote your content, the right people are seeing it at the right time. If you’re publishing an article about the best pizza delivery in New York, don’t publish it when everyone on the East Coast is sound asleep. There are great scheduling tools out there, so use them if you can’t promote content at the right time.

Leave Your Links Everywhere

Well, not everywhere maybe, but links can be a calling card if used wisely. Some of these cross over with the above section on providing content. This is the same idea as any other marketing really; you want as many eyeballs as possible on your product.

31. Link to your site in your email signature.

32. Link to your site in all your social media platforms.

33. Link to your site on your business cards that you will naturally give out at industry events.

34. Tell people about your site. You’d be surprised at how much of a resource this can be.

35. Comment on relevant blogs and sites without doing so in a spammy manner. I wouldn’t suggest popping your link into a casual comment because that’s not a good way to build long-term link exposure, but using your site for your comment signature can lead people to you, even if it doesn’t actually generate a link on the spot.

36. As mentioned earlier, guest post. Ask to guest post. Approach sites and say hey, would you be interested in having me as a one-time contributor? Be prepared with something though, in case you’re asked for an idea or a writing sample.

37. Interview someone. Interviewees usually link back to these interviews, and they’re a great way to get to know people in your industry.

38. Write a testimonial or a review of a product.

39. Leave reviews for local businesses you’ve visited on sites like Yelp.

40. Give feedback online through social media. If you like an article, tweet that to the writer. If you had a great hotel stay, put it on their Facebook page.

Be Creative and Visible

 There’s so much information out there that if you aren’t presenting a unique experience, you’re going to fall behind. If you aren’t drawing attention to your work, people aren’t going to see it.

Some people have difficulty promoting their own work, while some people seem to do nothing but promote their own work. You should definitely let people know when you have something new as we’re all busy people and will appreciate it.

41. Rewrite an old post in order to update the ideas.

42. Write a rebuttal or an alternative point of view to a post, publish it on your site, and let the webmaster know.

43. Do the same but ask to have it published on the same site.

44. Although I am very guilty of not going this well, include images in what you write. Sometimes your image will stick in someone’s mind longer than your words will.

45. Speak up on social media. Do it on Twitter, on Facebook, on Google+, and anywhere else there’s a conversation.

46. Participate in forums. Ask and answer questions. You can make amazing contacts this way.

47. If you can, sponsor a meetup in your area or maybe do a small drinks round at a bar after a conference.

48. Crowdsource ideas and feedback when you need them. I’ve met very few people who don’t enjoy being asked their opinion.

49. Introduce yourself to people online and offline. I’m always happy when someone comes up to me at a conference and introduces him or herself. Lots of friendships and business relationships are formed from a simple bold “hi.”

50. Speak at a conference! This is one of the ultimate ways to get noticed, and you can get a great link off the website of the people putting on the show. Your name will be in the conference materials, too…always a good thing.

Especially For B2B Sites

B2B can be tough at times. However, some of those difficulties simply come from how we think about it. I’m guilty of thinking that B2B provides more challenges than other types of businesses but if asked, I can’t actually give any concrete reasons to back it up.

Let’s just think of B2B as being unique, not difficult.

51. If you have a relationship with a supplier, don’t be afraid to link out and get a link back. While reciprocal links can be excessively spammy, if it makes sense, it isn’t always bad.

52. Simply ask your partners to link to you.

53. Publish an email newsletter that showcases anything new or creative that you’re doing and let your partners know about it. Maybe if you’ve never gotten a link off their website, you will once they see that you’re offering something new that can’t be found elsewhere.

54. Showcase a partner each month on your company’s blog or in a newsletter and ask the partner to promote this through his or her own company. You can get a great link off that blog for your trouble, and links like this are nicely relevant.

55. Create a contest for the guys who buy from you. For example, ask the 10 big ones to write a blog post on their company blogs about a topic relevant to both of you in your industry, with a link back to your site. For their trouble, enter them into a drawing where one lucky winner gets a discount on the next month’s agreement.

56. Put together a downloadable guide to your services and include the companies that you work with and list what they have to offer, to be used as an industry resource. Let them all know about it and don’t be afraid to promote this through social media channels, as everyone likes to know where they can find good information.

57. Think data. What kind of data would help you do something better, whether it’s find new suppliers/providers, cut costs, recruit employees, etc.? Search for it and if it exists and you aren’t a part of it, ask to contribute for the privilege of a link to your site. If this data isn’t out there, create it.

58. Participate where your suppliers, partners, and providers participate online. If there’s a big forum and you’ve never taken the time to get involved, do so now. If there isn’t anything major out there but you think there’s a need, get together with some of these companies and make it happen.

59. Sponsor a meetup or dinner where you invite your closest business associates. A small bar tab goes a long, long way in terms of engendering loyalty. More important than actual links, loyalty is what can keep your business running.

60. Try and be seen as a leader in your niche for online marketing. If you’re in a traditionally old-school company where no one wants to go online, be the first. When you learn how to successfully do it, take the lead and cultivate a following of people who want to learn from you. You know that guy who’s been running a mom and pop tractor repair place that he took over from his dad 40 years ago? Help him get comfortable with the web.

61. Make sure you’re listed in all the relevant online business directories.

62. Make sure you’re listed in all the local services like Yahoo Local and Google Places.

63. Become a member of your local civic organizations, Chamber of Commerce, marketing groups, etc.

64. Make a donation to a group in town that is somehow connected with your B2B. If you manufacture dog crates that you usually sell to dog breeders, make a donation to the animal shelter or ASPCA.

65. Check out the printed media available in your area. These can be great places to advertise and the cost can be low, but the visibility is excellent.

66. Ask for a link whenever you send out a new contract. While this should never be a requirement, it doesn’t hurt to mention that you’d like a link if possible, and make it easy by including instructions.

67. If you don’t have a blog, start one. Even the most seemingly-boring niches can be fascinating for the people who are involved with them.

68. Make sure you’re using social media at least on a minor level, even if it’s just having a Facebook page. Be the pioneer in your industry if you need to be and get comfortable with a form of marketing that is most likely going be around (and increasing in importance) for a long time.

69. Offer social media contests for a gift card. For example, if you “like” your business on Facebook, you’ll be entered into a drawing to win a $100 gift card to Amazon, Home Depot, etc.

70.Speak at tradeshows and industry conferences. Maybe you’ll pick up another business partner this way.

Whom Should You Target?

 Sometimes the discovery is the toughest part of link building, and it can be difficult to figure out where your best contacts will be. If you wanted to promote a local Chinese food delivery place that had a delivery radius of 5 miles, you wouldn’t be dropping menus at a neighborhood 20 miles away would you?

Let’s talk about how to target the most relevant prospects.

71. Sites that turn up in a simple manual keyword search. Now, to be honest, there have been a lot of issues with relevancy recently so I would never rely on the accuracy of what any engine tells me are the top 10 relevant sites for my query, but still, sites that show up for your keywords “should” be decent prospects, provided you’ve vetted them a bit and determined that they’re actually relevant.

72. Blogrolls. I would never rely on blogrolls and they have been abused but still, you can find some great sites through following blogrolls.

73. People that you already have some sort of existing relationship with, just no links from (yet).

74. Bloggers who are influential in your niche.

75. Sites who are open to guest posting and are in your niche.

76. Sites who are open to guest posting and not in your niche…as long as you can find a way to connect what you do to what they typically write about.

77. Webmasters you’ve spoken with in forums.

78. People you’ve met virtually.

79. Sites that could benefit from learning about your services.

80. Sites that you regularly use as an authority and that you’d like to contribute to.

Be My Guest

 Guest posting is kind of the current darling of the industry right now even though I imagine we’ll see it become abused like many other tactics. However, it presents a unique benefit: you showcase your work elsewhere. Sure you can write great content on your own blog, but when you can write great content for someone else, you get a link and you get known for contributing to something outside of what you control.

81. Use My Blog Guest to find people who are happy to post your content.

82. If there’s a site you read regularly, ask if they’d let you write something for them.

83. Pitch a series and not just a single post, as sometimes this offer gets attention faster.

84. Check social media to see who’s asking for guest posts.

85. If you write a guest post and it doesn’t go up immediately, don’t freak out and hassle the webmaster. Speaking from experience, I can say that sometimes getting a post up on my blog is not my highest priority of the day.

86. Use the guest post bio for a link.

87. Vary your guest post bio. Don’t do it to be spammy of course, but it’s a good way to get different bits of information out there about you and what you do.

88. Don’t be afraid to link to someone else in your guest post. If you’re referencing a competitor, link to him or her. It’s not going to kill you.

89. If you guest post on someone’s blog and are asked if the person can guest on yours, be gracious and say yes.

90. Don’t pay for guest posts. I am begging you. Keep them clean.

Keep Track Of What You’re Doing

Sometimes it’s easy to do so much that you forget what you have done, and you can duplicate your efforts. It’s easy enough to track but we don’t always think to do it. Doing so can save you a lot of time and effort though.

91. if someone says no to your request for a link/mention/guest post, etc. just move on. Don’t beat a dead horse or make it worse by harassing the person about it. Don’t email the same webmaster, who has said no repeatedly, 10 more times or you’re just begging for a reputation nightmare.

92. Watch your links and just generally keep an eye on things. Considering the amount of people who actually have been harmed by bad links, it’s worth making this a daily part of your marketing efforts.

93. Keep records of people who have been responsive but might not be able to help you out right now, and set a calendar reminder to contact them in a few months.

94. Keep a spreadsheet that lists the sites you’ve guest posted on or added your site to as a resource, etc. While it’s easy enough to pull a list of your links from the wide variety of tools out there, it’s also very easy to just keep track yourself.

95. Don’t submit the same piece of content to multiple sites.

96. Make sure that you aren’t speaking out of both sides of your mouth. For example if you’re an SEO, don’t write a post about how stupid it is to do link cleanup then turn around and write a post about how to do link cleanup. You’ll just get branded a hypocrite.

97. If you’re writing something new and you can’t remember if you’ve said it before, or if someone else has just said it, go look around and see. Even though you may mean no harm, many people have gotten upset over content that they view as being stolen or simply rehashed.

98. If you’re tried to reach out and connect with someone on social media but you’re not getting a response, just let it go and move on to someone else. No one likes a stalker, especially a persistent one.

99. If you’ve agreed to do a guest post series on someone’s blog, don’t make the webmaster track you down when the next installment is due, or you may find yourself out of a slot. Setting calendar reminders and sticking to deadlines when other people are concerned is simply good manners.

100. If you’re just read about something like an entire network being deindexed, pay attention and don’t waste your time and effort submitting content to those sites or trying to email them for links.

Link Checking Services and Information

There are free tools that let you check on links and there are paid tools. I use a mixture of both. Let’s just list a few that I can personally vouch for through either using them myself or through being lucky enough to have been asked to test them, and go through ways these can help you.

• Majestic SEO
• Link Research Tools
• Raven SEO Tools
• Linkdex
• Hitreach
• Ahrefs
• Buzzstream
• Screaming Frog
• SEOmoz
• Wordtracker

101. Check your new incoming links.

102. Check your overall backlink portfolio.

103. Conduct analysis on your own links.

104. Conduct analysis on a competitor’s profile.

105. Be alerted when a new link appears.

106. Check your breakdown of anchor text.

107. If there’s a drop in rankings or traffic, do a quick scan to see if anything looks fishy.

108. Check your portfolio after a major algorithm update.

109. Keep track of your existing links for various purposes.

110. Check out a site you want to get a link from before pursuing the opportunity.

Things to Avoid

What you should not, do can sometimes be just as important as what you should do, so let’s talk about some things to avoid if you want to enjoy a sustainable link building campaign.

111. Spammy links. Should go without saying right? It doesn’t, unfortunately.

112. Footers and sitewides on totally irrelevant sites. I’ve seen some relevant footers and sitewides but by and large, they are very, very rare.

113. Links that won’t bring you any traffic whatsoever.

114. Links on sites that seem to exist only to sell links or publish scraped content.

115. Links on sites that are part of a very obvious (and spammy) network.

116. Guest posts on poor quality sites that, again, don’t have a prayer of giving you any good traffic or visibility.

117. Repeating the same exact keywordized anchor over and over and over again, on every site that you deal with for 6 months.

118. Not using brand and URL anchors.

119. Not using some form of analytics, and not using Google’s Webmaster Tools. If you rely on Google like most people, using the Webmaster Tools can save you a lot of time if anything weird/bad happens. It’s hard to understand what’s happening in the engines and with rankings/traffic if you aren’t set up to be able to see what’s going on.

120. Thinking that you won’t actually get penalized or deindexed for using link practices that violate an engine’s guidelines for inclusion. Familiarize yourself with what can and will get you into trouble and if you can seriously afford the risk, make your decision. If being penalized in some way will cripple your business, you don’t need to do something that will potentially harm you.

Extra Tips and Notes

121. Be nice please, no matter what. If you are asking for a link, be respectful. If someone says no, say thank you and move on.

122. Don’t get into a shouting match online just because someone disagrees with you. By that same token, don’t be a jerk and make rude comments to people just because you don’t agree with them. It really is possible to disagree without devolving.

123. Say thanks when someone does something nice for you, whether it’s mentioning you for a Twitter “Follow Friday”, praising your latest article, or sending business your way. These are great ways to get links down the road.

124. Test a variety of tools to see which ones work best for you. There are indeed fantastic free ones, but some of the paid ones offer amazing functionality that may save you lots of time and money.

125. If you see that someone who previously sent you lots of traffic through a link has just removed that link, email or call and ask why, and figure out what you can do to get the link back. If it’s a good link, it’s worth the effort.

126. Don’t be afraid to link out. Thinking that you need to “conserve” link juice is just the slightest bit stingy. If there’s a great resource but it belongs to your competitor’s site, it says a lot that you can take the ego hit and link out anyway.

127. Don’t set limits on who you’ll deal with. If someone with 200 followers on Twitter asks you to do an interview, don’t dismiss the person because everyone else you do interviews for has at least a 5,000 Twitter follower reach.

128. Don’t put yourself in a box. Maybe you’ve never done an infographic and you think they won’t work for you, but guess what? You’ll never know until you try.

129. Incorporate image links into your backlink profile. If a site owner won’t give you a text link ask if he’ll take an image link.

130. Watch what other people in your niche are doing. You don’t always have to do the same thing but you can definitely learn from what they’re doing, even if you learn that their latest marketing tactic isn’t something you ever want to do.

131. Don’t ever get comfortable and think that you know everything. You don’t. Even if you almost do right now, you won’t next week. Keep reading about what’s going on in the SEO industry, in link building, and in your niche. Look at all the opportunities you have to learn something new and take them.

Always use graphics that fit the content. Just because you have an adorable photo of your dog doesn’t mean you should have it on your Web site about Web Design (sorry, Shasta…). The main exception I would make to this is for “design” images. These are photos or graphics that help make up the design of the page, and are not intended to illustrate the content.

Do not use images that blink or move or change or rotate or flash or do anything on your page. Or use them sparingly. There have been many studies that show that flashing graphics are distracting and annoying to people. In fact, in one focus group I watched the browsers actually physically cover up flashing graphics so that they could read the rest of the page.

Layout

Stick with standard layouts. I’ve seen some pages that use 6 or 8 frames on one page. Another site used a layout where you had to scroll to the right to read everything on the page (but you never had to scroll down). These layouts are cute, and you might find them fun to build, but they will drive your readers nuts. The reason that the 3-column layout is so popular on Web sites and newspapers is because it works. You might think it’s boring, but you’ll keep more readers if you stick with something simple that they can understand.

Whitespace is more than the CSS property, it is a function of your layout. You should be aware of the whitespace on your pages and how it affects how the content is viewed. Whitespace is just as important in a Web layout as it is in a paper layout.

Use your graphics as elements in your layouts. Graphics can be more than just graphics when you use them as actual elements in your layouts. An extreme example is when you wrap text around an image, but any image you have on your site is a layout element and should be treated as such.

Fonts

Serif for headlines and Sans-Serif for text. If you’ve taken any type of print design, this might be exactly the opposite of what you were taught. But the Web is not print. Sans-serif fonts are much easier to read on computer monitors because the screen resolution is not as high as in print. If you use serif fonts for normal text, the serifs can blur together on the screen making them hard to read. Your printer friendly page should use the opposite fonts (serif for headlines and sans-serif for text).

Limit the number of different fonts. One of the best ways to make your Web site look amateurish is to change the font over and over. Sure, it’s possible to do, but limiting your page and site to 2 or possibly 3 standard font families is easier to read and looks more professional.

Use standard font families. Yes, you can choose to use “Rockwood LT Standard” as your font on your page, but the chances that one of your readers will have that font as well is pretty low. Sticking with fonts like Verdana, Geneva, Arial, and Helvetica may seem boring, but your pages will look better and the designs look correct on more browsers.

Advertising

Don’t be greedy. If you have any control over the number of ads on your site, be aware that your readers are not coming to read the ads, they are coming for the content. If the ads overwhelm the page content, many readers won’t stick around long enough to read your purple prose. Yes, it’s important to make money from your Web site, but if your ads drive people away, you’ll ultimately lose money.

Treat ads as you would any other image. Keep them small, avoid blinking/flashing, and keep them relevant. Just because you can have an ad on your site, doesn’t mean that you should. If the content is relevant to your readers, they’re more likely to click on the ad.

Remember Your Readers

Test your pages in multiple browsers. Writing Web pages that work only on the most modern browser is both stupid and annoying. Unless you are writing a Web site for a corporate intranet or a kiosk where the browser version is completely fixed, you’ll have problems with people not being able to view your pages.

The same is true for operating systems. You can’t assume that just because your page works in IE5.0 for Windows it will work in IE5.0 for Macintosh.

Write content that they want. Unless you’re writing a site purely for yourself (and if you are, why is it posted to the Web?), make sure that your content covers topics that your readers want to read.

If you are a working professional or involved in a business environment in India Inc, here is what you should remember before posting on social media.

Let feedback be constructive instead of negative

Sounding negative immediately rings bells in organizations and their branding folks generally go into overdrive to play off bad publicity. So if you want to raise an issue against a company or an organization on their social media page, you should aim to give constructive feedback rather than negative rants. Just because you have the power to publish, does not make you any less liable for the things you say.

Employees take note: Adhere to your company guidelines

Internal enterprise social media and social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook have become very easy ways for employees to vent out either their anger against their bosses or how bad a day it was at work because of an irate client. Are you guilty of doing this too? From clauses in your employee contract to responsibility towards the company brand image and from confidentiality to matters pertaining to IPR, you could be violating a string of guidelines by ranting on social media. As an employee, it is in your best interest to refrain from posting comments or taking part in discussions about work or company on social media platforms, even if you think that you are trying to salvage your employer’s reputation. Leave it to the experts. So to play safe, read and remember the guidelines from your employee handbook and if you don’t have access to one, go speak to an HR personnel in your company.

Think before you speak? Think before you post!

While philosophers and management gurus have always said “Think before you speak” maybe the 21stcentury calls for new advice, “Think before you post”. One bad rant from your profile could very well be the next big viral meme and that’s exactly why you should think before you tweet or post a comment on any other social networking site. What may seem like a fun comment or a jovial jibe may very well work against you professionally, or otherwise.

Defamation can cause monetary damage

Even if you forget about ethical codes, company guidelines and being politically correct for a moment, there is still the possibility of facing lawsuits and fines if you post defamatory posts online.What if your employer took you to court just for a silly rant? What if your competitor sued you for a defamatory comment? What if your seemingly innocent tweet was in fact a clear violation of your contract?

These are the questions that you should be thinking about as a working professional. You may be facing heavy fines or serving a term in jail up to three years, under the Indian Penal Code and laws governing information technology. Case in point being Suhel Seth, marketing and media personality who was asked to pay Rs. 200 crore in damages by ITC for defamatory comments on Twitter. Below is what some of the industry heavyweights have to say.

“In fact, the damage from social media defamation can be higher since the medium is instantaneous, viral and more potent than traditional media” – Pawan Duggal, a lawyer who specializes in cyber law and practices in the Supreme Court.

“Defamation in traditional media would make the author, editor and publisher equally responsible whereas in social media the entire burden is on the author.” – Sajan Poovayya, Managing Partner, Poovayya & Co, a legal firm that specializes in internet litigation [Source]

Put everything against the context of time

Facebook has come out all guns blazing with its new feature, the timeline. While that may make for good entertainment and a cool way to go back to a user’s past on the social networking site, it also means that what you post on Facebook and the things you are ‘tagged’ in, is there to stay. It is as if you have a virtual life. And just like things in real life, things that you say and post may come back to haunt you later.

What if a post that you made a few years back interferes with the image that you want to build as a high flying company executive that you may have become today? Are the things that you post online susceptible to misinterpretation over time? These are some of the questions you want to think about before you post online.

Putting everything against the backdrop of time will instantly guide you to the right path of using social media. After all, you don’t want Google to throw up embarrassing posts that you made many years back on the first page if your potential new employer decides to do a virtual background check on you, do you? In this regard, Mr. Elango R, HR Officer, MphasiS has the apt last word,

“You’ve got to remember that there’s no expiry date.”

When putting together an eCommerce site, here’s a few key things to consider.

Homepage

Should contain the following:

• Identity, branding, logos etc
• Purpose of the store / site
• Value proposition (Why should the customer buy from you, opposed to another store?)
• Evidence of trust and credibility (brand logos, security notes, hacker safe notes, payment gateway logos etc)
• Customer communication (support number, live help etc)

Help / Support pages

Make the user feel comfortable using your website, ensure they are only a click away from getting the help they need. Things to incorporate include:

•  How to order / help information
• Shipping and handling information
• Return policies
• Customer service details
• Details about the company
• Privacy and security statement
• Store locator

Information pages

While the focus of store is to sell, by providing a range of information pages, you not only build a great content base to optimise for SEO purposes, but provide great resources for your shoppers.

Information included should:

• Allow customers to educate themselves about products
• Help customers differentiate (products and competitors)
• Be written in an SEO friendly manner

Site navigation

The most important component of the website is making it user friendly. Ensure the site work the way a user expects it to! Your site should provide

• Global site navigation (the same across all page)
• Quick link to key pages
• Breadcrumb navigation (i.e. Men Clothing > Tops > T Shirts)
• A site map so that a user can easily view all pages should they get lost
• “Site search”
  • Make it easier for users who know what they want
  • Should be available on all pages
  • Report on keyword searches

Product catalogue

Here’s a few pointers to keep in mind when designing your eCommerce store.

• Category and sub category pages should contain
  • Category description
  • Product name
  • Product description
  • Product image
  • Add to cart button

• Detailed product pages should contain
  • Product name
  • Product description
  • Product images
  • Send to friend (viral tool)
  • Add to cart button
  • Design principles (important information “Above the fold” of the screen – i.e. “Add to cart”)

• Shopping cart and checkout pages should allow:
  • Flexibility for adding, deleting and editing cart items
  • Ability to save shopping cart
  • Customer registration (should be voluntary)
  • Shipping and billing (allow transfer of customer information between shipping and billing pages)
  • Payment systems (Credit card, Pay Pal, Google Checkout, batch processing – i.e. manual via EFTPOS)
  • Design principles (Avoid requesting excessive information, place important information above the fold and add a progress meter)

Site administration

Your eCommerce store needs to be easy to manage. The less time you need to spend fiddling around in the back end, the more time you can allocate to marketing the website and making enhancement to the front end!

At a minimum, your eCommerce administration should allow the following:

• Order management
  • Search for orders
  • Process orders
  • Delete orders

• Product management
  • Manual product entry
  • Bulk upload
  • Shipping management
  • Sales statistics

Site hosting and security

• Site performance (faster loading sites can increase conversions)
• Security – Most important!
  • SSL (Secure connection)
• Data center
  • Bandwidth
  • Backups
  • Ongoing support and upgrades

Merchandising Options

• Show competitor comparison
• Cross selling and up selling (suggest additional items on the product page, not at checkout)
• Consider free shipping
• Product guarantees and warranties
• Return policies
• Payment options (accept a wider variety of payment means)
• Highlight special offers
• Extra services and discounts (birthday gifts, referral points, gift wrapping etc)

Advanced features

Want more? New features are always being revealed in eCommerce stores throughout the world. Here’s a few things that just might put your store ahead of the competition.

• Birthday reminders
• Wish lists
• Refer a friend / referral points
• “Build your own” tools
• Dynamic imaging
• Zoom features on pictures
• Ability for users to flip between front and back views on product images
• 360 degree product views
• Colour and pattern swatching
• Shipping and item cost previews

1. Amount of Storage

Ive Drive Unibody External icon by The Iconfactory, Inc.

When choosing your web hosting, one of your primary concerns will obviously be “How much data can I store?” For most small and medium web sites, you’ll find that several gigabytes should be plenty of storage. Some hosts may offer “unlimited storage”: caveat emptor! If you read the fine print (usually, the Terms and Services) you’ll find that it’s unlimited until you go over the “normal site usage.” If you think you might be close to or over whatever “normal” is, make sure you know what you can use before buying … or go with a host that sets clear limits.

2. Amount of Bandwidth

When looking for a web host, you’ll often see storage and bandwidth hand in hand. What is bandwidth? It’s the amount of data that your host will let you and your visitors upload and download (cumulatively) in a given month. Say your website is 1 megabyte of data and your monthly bandwidth is 10 MB. At the beginning of the month, you upload the entire site; now you’ve used up one MB of bandwidth. If a visitor to your site views every page, they will have downloaded 1MB of data. That means you can have up to 9 visitors in that month (assuming each views your whole site). After that, your web host will either not allow any more visitors, or (more likely) charge you extra per MB. Of course, your bandwidth is something you’ll want to keep an eye on, especially if you run a fairly popular site or do something media intensive (like host your own video, or high-res photos). Just like storage, some hosts offer “unlimited” bandwidth; again, if you think you’ll be in a grey area, find out the limits or choose a host that sets the bar where all can see it.

3. Number of Domains and Subdomains

Once you’re running one site, there’s a good chance it won’t be long until you’ve got a second one up … and then a third. It would be a pain to have to manage a hosting account for each site you own, so make sure your web host will let you host multiple domains. Often, there will be a limit on how many domains you can have on one account; make sure it will accomodate you! Usually, there will be a section in the admin panel for adding your domains and choosing which sub-folders each one will point to. The same is true for sub-domains.

4. Email Accounts and Features

Many web hosts also offer email account for your domains. You’ll want to know how many email accounts they’ll let you set up; also, don’t forget to check out their selections for receiving that mail. Do they have a webmail interface? Multiple ones that you can select from? How about integration with Google Apps (for the Gmail interface)? Can you get your mail in your client of choice via IMAP, or do they only offer POP?

5. Database Support

Database icons (including post preview icon) by barrymieny

Now-a-days, even small websites seem to have a database on the back end. You’ll want to make sure you can use the type of database you’re comfortable with. Most hosts today offer MySQL; that’s probably enough for most people, but if you’d prefer PostsgreSQL, Oracle, SQL Server, or another flavour, don’t settle for anything less. Remember, if they aren’t advertising it, they probably don’t offer it!

6. Framework Support and Easy-Install

A lot of web hosts offer support for popular frameworks, blogging systems, or CMSes. I think it’s safe to say that the majority of Nettuts’ readers are WordPress fans: it’s always nice when your web host offers a one-click install (or at least a super easy set-up) for WordPress or your CMS of choice.

7. Mobile App or Website

For most people, this will probably be a nice extra; however, I’m sure there’s something who will find having a mobile app to access your site administration / statistics on the go indespensible. While I only know of two hosts (MediaTemple and SliceHost) that currently offer iPhone and Android apps (MediaTemple’s Android app is forthcoming ), I’m sure most hosts will follow their lead. Both offer mobile websites as well, and I’m sure other hosts have the same.

8. Tech Support

This one is very important: find out exactly what your prospective host offers for tech support: can you phone them? At what times? Do they have a support email address? A ticket system? What’s their promised response time? How about a live chat? Do they have a wiki or library of help articles / tutorials? Don’t choose a host until you know exactly what support they offer; you’ll be happy for it later, trust me!

9. Shell Access

If you’re a little more advanced, you might want to consider choosing a host that offers shell access: that’s logging into your server from the command line over SSH. You’ll be able to securely copy files up and down, change file permissions for whole groups of files quickly and easily, and perform a multitude of other tasks. If you want this feature, you’ll know all that you do with it!

10. .htaccess Files

Here’s another important one: you’ll want the ability to add your own .htaccess files to your directories. What’s a .htaccess file? It’s a configuration file used by Apache server. You can use them to password protect directories, re-write URLs, redirect pages, and more. Check out the many good tuts here on Nettuts+ to get familiar with them.

11. Cron Jobs

Cron jobs are another great feature to have on your web host (and there’s a good chance you’ll have them if you’ve got shell access). Cron is a “time-based job scheduler” (thanks, Wikipedia) that you can use to perform tasks on the server at given times. To learn more about how to use Cron and what you can do with it, check out the great Cron tutorial we ran back in January.

12. Language Support

This should go without saying, but make sure the host you plan to choose offers support for the server-side languages you want to use. If you plan to pick up Ruby on Rails in the next few months, you probably want to see it on the list of supported frameworks. If you want to use Django, make sure there’s Python support. Don’t lock yourself into having PHP as your only option (unless you’re sure that’s all you’ll ever want or need!).

13. Free AdWords

While not a necessarily something you need, it’s something you’ll probably want to take advantage of: many hosts offer some Google AdWords credit (usually ~$50, I’ve found) or some other form of advertising. Even if you’d rather use another advertising proxy, you can’t beat free: you might as well use it!

14. Site Backup

Don’t think that your web host is any less suseptible to data loss than your own computers; remember, servers are just big computers that everyone can read files from! What backup options, if any, does your host provide? You’ll want to back up both your site files and databases. If they don’t offer backup, figure out how you’ll be able to do it yourself: this might be one of the places that shell access and cron come in handy!

15. Choice of OS

For most people, this won’t be a big issue. Of course, if you’re developing in ASP.NET, you’ll need Windows hosting; that’s a little harder to find, and often a bit more expensive, but if you’re a Microsoft developer, the extra cost will be worth it. (If you’re interesting in learning about ASP.NET, check out our great tuts on the subject.) If you’re using an open source language, you probably won’t need to worry about which Linux/Unix distribution you’ll get; however, some hosts give you options, and some developers may have preferences, so it’s worth mentioning.

16. Extra Applications

We already talked about content management systems, but sometimes you’ll want a something more. Several hosts offer set-ups for social features like forums, bulletin boards, mailing lists. If you’ll be running an online store, some hosts offer setups for eCommerce solutions.

17. Up-to-Date-ness

If you can, find out what software versions the host you are considering offers. Some hosts aren’t quick to upgrade to the latest offering, while others will let you choose which version you want. There are few things worse than signing up for a year of hosting only to discover your host is running PHP 4.x (yes, I’ve made that mistake).

18. Up-Time

I’m sure I don’t have to convince you that it’s important to know that your visitors will be able to get to your site when they try! Find out how reliable your prospective host is; when you’re doing this, it’s important to read the fine print. Often, hosts will stretch the truth a bit (claiming 99.9% uptime, not counting almost everything that could go wrong), so make sure you understand exactly what “100% uptime” means. It would be a wise move to google around and see what other users and reviewers have said about the host.

19. Free Domain

While you may already have a domain name, there’s no such thing as too many of them. Most hosts offer this, but all else being equal, a shiny new domain name is a good enough reason to go with one host over the other.

Optimizing and Compression

CSS Optimizer

CSS Optimizer is a simple online optimizer that processes your current CSS and outputs the compressed version. You have the option of linking to the URL of your stylesheet, uploading a CSS file, or directly inputting your styles. It’s a simple tool that’s “plug-and-chug” – there are no options, so the optimization procedure will remain the same for all your inputs (great if you’d like to standardize compression settings).

Clean CSS

Clean CSS is based on the popular CSS minifier, CSSTidy. You can set your desired compression level (the trade-off to higher compression is more difficult readability) and customize compression options. It prints out a line-by-line report afterwards to show you exactly what’s been changed. Also check out CSS Formatter and Optimiser, which uses a more recent version of CSSTidy (1.3dev).

CSS Drive Gallery- CSS Compressor

CSS Drive’s CSS compressor has two modes, Regular mode and Advanced mode (which has a few more options that you can set). You can remove the comments (strip comments option) or specify to strip comments that exceed a certain character limit, thus retaining comments that are short. Regular mode is perfect for those that aren’t picky – just choose between Light, Normal, and Super Compact compression and you’re ready to rock.

Online CSS Optimizer

Online CSS Optimizer is another simple CSS optimization tool based on the CSS optimizer command-line application for OS X and Linux. You have two ways to input your CSS: either via the text box provided on the page or directly linking to your stylesheet. Sometimes you’ll find that you need to reverse the compression – you can do so by using the Uncompress CSS application on the site.

CSS Compressor

Another popular web-based CSS compression tool is Robson’s open-source CSS Compressor, (check out the CSS Compressor PHP source code). There are plenty of compression options you can set that deals with colors, measurements (units), rules, and CSS properties. CSS Compressor also provides a useful Combine utility for simultaneously combining and compressing up to three separate CSS files.

flumpCakes Style Sheet Optimizer

The flumpCakes Style Sheet Optimizer is another optimizer and formatter with a few options. It gives you the choice of automatically combining background, font, list, and border attributes into short-hand notation and a Pretty Print option that standardizes code format. One cool feature is the Backlink feature which provides you a URL that you can bookmark and return to anytime to view your stylesheet’s compressed state.

Formatting

Format CSS

FormatCSS allows you to paste your valid CSS code, correcting and standardizing your source code. There’s several available settings and rules that you can apply to achieve the type of format you desire – including ordering your CSS alphabetically, de-capitalizing your code, and some options for dealing with styles.

prettyprinter.de

prettyprinter.de isn’t limited to CSS – it also formats PHP, Java, C++, C, Perl and JavaScript – so it’s a terrific “one-stop-shop” for your formatting needs if you happen to work with any of the other supported languages. It has a total of 13 different options you can set including “Reduce Whitespace”, “Remove empty lines”, and automatically adding new lines after curly brackets.

Tabifier

Tabifier is multi-language web-tool specifically designed for standardizing indents in source code. It supports HTML, CSS, and C Style. It’s a simple tool, excellent for quickly formatting your indents.

Validating and Checking

The W3C CSS Validation Service

Perhaps the most common web-based validation service for CSS is the W3C CSS Validation Service. It’s very simple to use, just enter the URL of your stylesheet and it will output the status of your stylesheet and point out errors, warnings and other issues.

Juicy Studio: CSS Analyser

Juicy Studio’s CSS Analyser combines the W3C validation service with additional checks of color contrast (helpful for vision-impairment accessibility issues) and units of measurement used in your source code. You can input the CSS either via the URL or copying your code onto the text box provided on the page. The result is a very detailed breakdown of errors and warning about your CSS, similar to the W3C CSS Validation Service.

CSS Redundancy Checker

CSS Redundancy Checker is a simple tool for checking to see if you have redundant styles that can be combined together. This reduces unneeded styles and is a good way to check your work. It’s a three-step process: simply link to your stylesheet, put a few pages that use the stylesheet, and press the “check” button. The output is a detailed list of suggestions and places where you can reduce code by combining redundant styles.

If you’ve used any of the tools above, please share your experiences (good and especially bad) with us in the comments.

Since these are automated and have standard processing methods, please exercise caution and use your own judgment when using the outputs – things can get badly broken so do thoroughly test the results!

This guide is intended to introduce new eCommerce professionals or business owners to the three most important phases of starting, promoting and maintaining an eCommerce business or website. In it we will cover brief introductions to eCommerce, including what it is, how far it has come and features specific to eCommerce. We will also be introducing, defining and explaining eCommerce marketing and eCommerce web design. In addition, the three main sections of this guide will list and explain many of the biggest benefits to conducting business Online, marketing Online and designing the site correctly.

What is eCommerce & eBusiness?

E commerce Defined:

eCommerce, which is short for electronic commerce, is the process used to distribute, buy, sell or market goods and services, and the transfer of funds online, through electronic communications or networks. Electronic commerce is commonly referred to as Online commerce, Web commerce, eBusiness, eRetail, eTailing, e-tailing, ecommerce, eCommerce, e-commerce, ecom or EC.

Beginning & Future of eCommerce:

eCommerce basically began (although debated) in 1994 when Jeff Bezos started Amazon.com out of his own garage. Well known eCommerce stores include sites like eBay, Dell, Walmart and many more. Since 1994, businesses of all shapes and sizes have began launching or expanding their Online presence. At any given time, there are approximately 8 million consumers worldwide that actively shop and buy through Web based stores or retailers (nearly one tenth of our world population). Online studies have claimed that online retail revenues will surpass the quarter-trillion-dollar mark by 2011.

eCommerce Site Features:

Typical business web sites do not usually have the same features as eCommerce enabled web stores do. In order to effectively distribute, market and sell goods or services Online you will need certain features only found on eCommerce sites. Features may include a shopping cart, ability to process credit cards, online product catalog, automated inventory system, databases, bulk email program, statistics tracking and other non-computer technologies such as product warehousing and shipping transportation.

What are the Benefits of eCommerce & eBusiness?

The processes involved with conducting business on the Internet and opening an eCommerce shop to sell from have several benefits to both merchants and the customers who buy from them. The biggest benefits of conducting business Online include a cheaper upfront cost to the merchant, it’s easier to set up and open the store and it’s faster to get an Online business up, running and making sales.

Helps Create New Relationship Opportunities:

Expanding or opening an eBusiness can create a world of opportunity and helps to establish new relationships with potential customers, potential business associates and new product manufacturers. Just by being in an easy to find location that is accessible to users all over the world, you will be available for others to find and approach you about new opportunities. Customers who don’t know you exist will know about you, product suppliers will request you add their items and other businesses will approach you about partnership opportunities. Many of these opportunities would not present themselves without an Online presence or site for them to discover you on their own.

Open for Business 24×7:

An eCommerce site basically gives you the ability to have unlimited store hours, giving your customers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week access to shop and buy items from you. Some merchants choose to limit their hours to 5 days a week, but orders can still be made over the weekend and customers can still make contact 24/7 via email, phone or fax. In addition, the costs associated with having your store open 24/7 are much less than maintaining a physical storefront or phone operator with 247 operation capability. You can literally take orders and let customers shop while you sleep, take vacations or from remote locations.

Increases Brand or Product Awareness:

Having an Online business means that you can literally reach out to millions of consumers looking for what you sell anywhere in the world. By reaching out to new markets and displaying your site prominently in front of them, you will be able to help increase your company/domain brand name and also increase awareness about your product line. By giving users 24/7 access in an easy to find location, you will help to create more word of mouth buzz for your eBusiness, in turn helping to promote your brand name and products. Users who haven’t heard of you will discover you exist and help spread the word about you.

Helps Establish Customer Loyalty:

An eCommerce storefront will help create an easier means for your customers to purchase the items you sell and offers a unique way to display and describe your products in a informative, visual and interactive way. The customers you have will become more loyal shoppers each time they visit, making eCommerce great for improved customer satisfaction and visitor loyalty. Now that you offer your products for sale Online, consumers will be able to shop from your catalog more easily, get updates on new items or product discounts and can shop or buy anytime they wish.

Potential to Increase Overall Business Sales:

An eCommerce store that is an extension of a physical storefront is a great way to boost overall business sales and potentially increase company profits across the board. Companies who already do business from a physical location are typically unaware of how much more they could be making if only they were to expand into their Online marketplaces. Selling Online opens up many opportunities for businesses both new and old. It’s a great way to increase sales, especially if you already have a physical store.

Potential to Increase Company Profits:

As mentioned above, opening an Online extension of your store or moving your business solely Online are great ways to boost sales and potentially profits. Remember, just because SALES increase it does not necessarily mean that company PROFITS will increase also. Online businesses do have a greater chance of increasing sales and profits by opening up an eCommerce store to sell the items they offer. Sales and profits are the lifeblood of any company, so it makes sense to increase them where ever possible and whenever possible throughout the existence of your company. More sales, more profits, bigger budgets, etc.

Potential to Decrease Some Costs:

In addition to potentially increasing sales and profits, eBusiness owners can also typically reduce the costs of running their business by moving it or expanding it into the Online world. eCommerce stores can run with less employees including sales staff, customer service reps, order fulfillment staff and others. eBusinesses also do not need a physical location in order to stay operational, which can reduce costs related to building leases, phone bills, utility costs and other costs associated with running a brick-and-mortar storefront.

Expands Geographical or Customer Reach:

As mentioned, owning an eCommerce business typically means no limits as to who and where you can sell your products. Some countries outside the United States have additional regulations, licensing requirements or currency differences, but generally you will not be limited on the customers you can reach out to. Physical storefronts are limited to the city in which they are located, Online businesses aren’t limited unless you put geographical limits in place. At the very least, you should consider targeting U.S. buyers, but also consider, Canada, UK, Australia and others. Sell to anyone, anywhere, anytime!

Allows for Smaller Market or Niche Targeting:

Although your customer reach may expand beyond your local area, you may only wish to target smaller consumer markets and buyer niches for your eCommerce products. Owning an Online store gives the merchant much control over who they target and reach out to notify about the items for sale in their store. Currently, you can target women, men, a generation of users, a particular race and many more smaller niche markets. This is typically done by placing keywords that those niche markets use on a regular basis when shopping for the items you offer.

Allows for Easier Delivery of Information:

An Online store and Web brochure are great ways to deliver and display information about your company and the products you sell. With an Online presence your customers will have direct access to product information, company information, specials, promotions, real time data and much more information that they can easily find just by visiting your site day or night. Not only does it benefit your customers, but it’s also generally easier for merchants to update their site rather than break down an in store display and put up another for the next event. It saves both your customers and you precious time and can help you to plan more updates or better sales as it will be much easier for you to update and take down.

What is eCommerce Marketing?

eCommerce Marketing Defined:

eCommerce marketing can be defined in many different ways and can include both Online or Offline campaign strategies. Most often, it’s considered to be the marketing of goods and services over the Internet or any other electronic network (like a mobile phone or pda). eCommerce marketing is commonly referred to as ecommerce optimization, online marketing, search engine marketing, sem, search engine optimization, seo, catalog optimization, catalog seo, product seo, merchant marketing and many more variations of those terms.

Beginning & Future of eCommerce Marketing:

eCommerce marketing began when the first shopping cart enabled sites started popping up all over the Net. As competition in major markets such as consumer electronics, gifts, clothing or apparel and outdoor goods started to grow so did the need for eCommerce marketing. Online retailers who first began to market through the Internet saw huge potential for success Online and many of them saw enormous profits all the way up until the dot com boom. Since the dot com boom, eCommerce marketing has evolved into a whole new mix of strategies and techniques designed to increase exposure from a multitude of channels to the eCommerce seller. Marketing professionals have spent countless hours testing, experimenting and reporting on which strategies work and which seem to have no positive affects. Now there are many different ways to market an eCommerce enabled site.

Marketing Strategies & Techniques:

eCommerce marketing today is typically made up of several creative or unique mixes of traditional and new-age marketing strategies that can include techniques related to direct mail, email marketing, search engine optimization, CPC or sponsored listings, building related links, establishing brand recognition and social media marketing. There are many other ways to market an eCommerce store and new ways of reaching out to potential customers are always being discovered and tested.

What are the Benefits of eCommerce Marketing?

The processes involved with marketing products on the Internet and increasing company or brand recognition among consumer markets have several benefits to both Online shoppers and merchant store owners. The biggest benefits of eCommerce marketing include less costs than print advertising, helps build customer relationships, brand credibility and it costs less to get an eCommerce marketing campaign running and operational.

Tax Breaks for Conducting Business Online:

It is common knowledge that conducting business Online has certain tax advantages compared to brick-and-mortar selling. Many eCommerce merchants who qualify for such tax deductions may find that they can save more in taxes than if they sold using traditional retail or a physical storefront. Home-based eBusiness can deduct many of the same things traditional businesses can. Traditional businesses can write-off utility, rent or mortgage bills as costs of doing business and Online merchants can also write-off certain portions of utilities. Vehicles are another common deduction along with office equipment and other time spent on setting up or running the business. Consider the tax benefits you could reap by conducting business through eCommerce.

Cheaper than Print Advertising:

Many traditional businesses are used to more traditional marketing campaigns such as print and yellow page advertising. Many traditional business owners are not aware that a majority of eCommerce marketing strategies are far cheaper than any of the best Offline, print advertising methods that have been used for years. Traditional advertising is still a quality form of marketing, however it is not always cost effective, especially for small businesses. Print advertising can get expensive as there may be a need to update regularly, which requires new work be planned and generated. It is much quicker and more cost effective to update and maintain eCommerce marketing campaigns, especially as technology continues to improve. By conducting business Online and using the proven form of eCommerce marketing, merchants have the potential to generate far more in ROI with less spend than they could ever hope to expect from costly print advertising campaigns.

Interactive Ads or Marketing Campaigns:

Using advertising that engages potential customers is key in todays fast paced, little time consumer shopping space. One benefit to eCommerce marketing is the merchants ability to develop and improve a number of interactive advertising or marketing campaigns designed to reach out and engage shoppers. Videos, flash, presentations, graphics, moving animations. They can all be used as interactive devices to help entice shoppers to drop in and shop around for the products or services offered. Interactive ads and applications on the Web are predicted to reach new heights as technology improves.

Flexible Ad or Marketing Campaigns:

Many traditional marketing strategies are limited in what they can offer and what kind of flexibility each initiative has. For instance, with print advertising there’s only so much you can do, but with eCommerce marketing there’s literally no cap and no end to the flexibility of nearly any campaign. Merchants can develop more creative marketing ideas and launch them using the power and assistance of the Web (for both delivery and functionality). eCommerce marketing initiatives can be automated and are much more flexible than many of the traditional marketing or advertising methods.

Builds Lasting Customer Relationships:

The relationships you form with shoppers and existing customers can very well determine the overall success of any business, Online or off, however eBusinesses have a lot more tools, methods and means of building long standing customer relationships than traditional businesses do. Technology and the reach of the Web has made it easier for eCommerce merchants to form long lasting relationships. That, combined with tools that make customer management and servicing more efficient, using up less time, has also sparked more creative ways to market to customers Online. eCommerce marketing and conducting business Online can have a direct influence on how customers view the overall brand or product. If done correctly, it will help build lasting customer relationships, which in itself has benefits.

Helps Build Brand Credibility:

In many of the same ways eCommerce marketing helps to engage and get to know customers, it also has benefits which may increase brand awareness and credibility among shoppers looking for what you sell. With the ever expanding list of Online marketing channels, it’s getting easier for eCommerce merchants to spread the word and saturate certain areas of the Web with their products and brand. As shoppers scour the Web for information about a product that interests them they notice the companies and brands that they see, many take note and store them away for next time. By utilizing the proper marketing channels in your niche, you may very well find yourself building long standing credibility and brand awareness among shoppers and existing customers. Better brand awareness and credibility also helps to increase word of mouth buzz.

Gather Feedback from Customers:

Having a website that displays and offers products for sale is a great way to attract customers, make money and grow a business, however many eCommerce merchants fail to see all the additional benefits of running an eCommerce business like their ability to gather feedback about the site, brand or products directly from customers or shoppers. eCommerce marketing initiatives aren’t always about a promotion or selling the product, some are meant to gather information or feedback from customers about how the business can improve. Conducting business Online and offering polls, questionnaires and feedback forms is a great way to get direct input from existing customers and even shoppers who haven’t yet purchased.

Conduct Cheap Market Research:

Many eCommerce merchants use their site, customers and competitors as a way to conduct market research surrounding a particular product or one in which they hope to introduce in the future. It’s much easier to catch a glimpse into a particular selling market using the resources and data from Online businesses, including your own. Trying to conduct market research for a brick and mortar store can be difficult and may take much time to plan and execute. With the availability of data on the Web and through the use of new technologies offered on the Web, eCommerce merchants are able to conduct market or product research quickly, efficiently and without hassle.

Lower Startup Costs Increase Efficiency:

Many times it is much cheaper and takes less startup capital to open up an eCommerce business compared to a retail store location or chain. Online business does not require as many of the ingredients needed in business as a traditional business does. There’s typically no permits, fewer licenses, no lease to pay on, smaller utility bill, less or no employees to hire and no inventory to stock or manage on shelves. By starting out the business with less investment capital or startup funds, it can help to increase efficiency and leaves more funds available for actually marketing the brand or products.

Lower Startup Costs Increase Profitability:

As mentioned, it cost far less to startup an eCommerce business than a traditional retail business. For many of the same reason that lower startup costs help to increase efficiency, they also help eCommerce merchants to potentially increase profitability. Obviously, if it takes less of the bottom line to get things up and running it will take less in return to generate a profit off of the eCommerce marketing tactics you choose to use. As mentioned, eCommerce marketing is cheaper than traditional advertising, so if it costs less to conduct business Online and costs less to market Online, than it will take less in return to actually turn a profit, helping anyones chances for increased profitability.

Increases Growth or Opportunity Potential:

Marketing Online has the potential to increase store growth at a much quicker rate than traditional marketing or retail business. eCommerce marketing can also generate more opportunities for any business no matter the products you sell and potentially at a much quicker rate. Major media networks may pick up on you via Online channels and report your business to consumers, while you may not have ended up on their radar had you only sold offline. That’s just one example, there are many more opportunities and a much higher chance of early growth through conducting and marketing an eCommerce business. The Online market offers a much fairer playing field and opens up doors that otherwise might be closed off to a retailer. It allows nearly any business, no matter their size to grow and have the same potential opportunities as larger sellers do.

Global Market Reach:

The World Wide Web spans across and reaches exactly that, the world. With the reach and technology offered through eCommerce, merchants have the ability to target consumers anywhere in the world, even smaller sections or local regions. eCommerce marketing initiatives can be deployed in a variety of ways, but the reach may span globally, rather than only within a certain city or region. having this type of reach opens up the possibility that customers can find the business from anywhere they reside and buy from them without having to travel to another location. having global market reach means potentially having customers world wide, without the limitations of traditional media or geographic boundaries.

Potential to Market Any Product:

The internet constantly has millions of users searching for a vast number of different products or services. If it exists, chances are there’s at least a few people searching for it Online. eCommerce marketing and selling Online allows merchants to target and reach these audiences, even on a limited budget. This creates the potential for anyone to sell anything Online (assuming it’s legal to sell). Merchants can now offer niche items and market those items to the right individuals using creative and innovative eCommerce marketing ideas.

Flexible Schedule or More Personal Time:

Running an Online business can be as time demanding and require just as much attention as a traditional business, however it does give merchants the ability to maintain a flexible schedule and can possibly even allow them more time away from the business to spend doing other things they love. Having a schedule we control and personal time is something everyone desires. Conducting business Online and marketing through the different channels the Internet provides finally gives more of us the freedom we desire. As mentioned, it typically takes far less time to startup and launch an Online business, however that doesn’t necessarily mean it will take less time to manage. The time you save can be used however you please.

Ability for Multiple Revenue Streams:

Once you have successfully launched and marketed one Online business you may wish to do it again with another eCommerce business, or maybe you already have a full-time job and you run a successful eBusiness on the side. Either way, by conducting business Online you open up all kinda of potential for multiple revenue streams. May merchants have been able to successfully maintain their Online stores while still working their 9 to 5 job. Others have opened a chain or multiple Online stores in order to generate multiple streams of revenue. eCommerce marketing makes it easier to own and operate more than one business or entity Online.

Streamlines Sales Process & Ad Copy:

eCommerce marketing and offering products for sale over the Internet can help businesses streamline sales processes and advertising copy used within marketing campaigns. With more customers and a greater reach it is easier for merchants to gain insights and feedback as to how marketing initiatives are performing and whether or not each one is generating the desired ROI. Testing, experimenting and rotating campaigns or ad copy can help businesses to improve and streamline many processes within the store, from processes related to customers, sales or marketing.

Helps Promote Brick-and-Mortar Businesses:

So, what if you own a brick-and-mortar business already and you are thinking of expanding into eCommerce? Don’t think long, it’s a great idea and the timing couldn’t be more perfect. Many traditional business owners are finding that by expanding their business model and marketing plans into the Online space that they in turn get more exposure to their physical stores. eCommerce marketing initiatives work great for promoting an offline business, however you still need an Online location for customers to reference on the Web. In a perfect world all brick-and-mortars would also have a presence Online, but it’s simply not the case as of yet. Jumping into eCommerce and using the power of Online marketing is a great way to promote and help grow a retail brick-and-mortar location.

What is eCommerce Web Design?

eCommerce Web Design Defined:

eCommerce web design is generally defined as the planning, creation and arrangement of files, text, graphics and processes used within an eCommerce enabled website. The files make up different sections of the site which typically include pages, categories, subcategories and products. eCommerce web design is commonly referred to as web design, web development, site design, site development, shop design/development, store design/development, web store design/development, eCommerce design/development or shopping cart design/development (including variations of these terms).

Beginning & Future of eCommerce Web Design:

eCommerce designs have evolved over the years from plain looking designs with few graphics and little appeal to fully interactive eCommerce sites using the latest in graphic design and programming technologies. The days of simple layouts and designs are pretty much done with as competition increases and more merchants are attempting to improve the look, feel and usability of their eCommerce designs. Now it is more common to see gradient graphics, more options for shoppers, features surrounding customers, better layouts, faster load times, videos, more payment options and much much more. New age eCommerce design is about being creative and original, pretty much anything that can be though of can be accomplished using current eCommerce design technology for an eCommerce business.

eCommerce Design Methods & Features:

eCommerce design today typically consists of several unique features or elements and can be performed using a variety of popular web design methods. A database, shopping cart, ability to accept payments, security certificate, products, policies and more are all common eCommerce design features. There are also eCommerce design and shopping cart process best practices that can make the task of knowing how to design and eCommerce site easier. Popular methods of eCommerce design include using HTML (and stem languages), ASP, ASP.net, PHP, CSS, Ajax, JavaScript, XML and others. Popular methods for creating eCommerce graphics include using Photoshop, Flash and other graphics or video programs.

What are the Benefits of eCommerce Web Design?

Allows for Faster, Easier, Efficient Discovery:

An Online business’ ability to be discovered by shoppers, current customers and search engines is extremely important for merchants who hope to grow their eCommerce venture into a success. Quality eCommerce design allows for quicker, easier, more efficient discovery by consumers or search engine bots. By using eCommerce design best practices and following certain usability guidelines, you’ll find that the discovery process will nearly take care of itself, meaning the merchant will have little to no maintenance down the road. The faster, easier and more efficient you can make your processes of discovery the faster your business will grow to the next stage. For best results, keep improving, keep testing and always refine your designs.

Potential to Improve Accessibility:

Having an eCommerce business that is easy to discover is only part of the formula within eCommerce design. In addition, merchants will need a store that is accessible to their shoppers, existing customers and even search engines. Accessibility is a major factor when designing and implementing a site, if users and search engines cannot access ALL your important pages you will find that it may dwindle your chances of success or at the very least slows down chances you would have had if the store was originally built with accessibility best practices in mind. Use hyper links rather than image links, utilize a sitemap, keep track of indexed pages and link your site together in an organized, easy to understand, easy to use way. Make sure that pages that lie deeper within the site can be accessed from pages higher up in the site and vice versa. Making your business site more accessible in the beginning will save the merchant much time, hassle and re-designing in the end.

Potential to Improve Usability:

Using quality eCommerce design methods will not only make your site easier to discover and access, it can also potentially improve how shoppers, current customers and search engine use the site. The way in which a site is built can interfere with how users interact and use the site. If you put up features that turn into roadblocks, the site will become less usable. If you put up features that are designed with usability best practices in mind you’ll find that shoppers will be happy with their experience, customers will return and search engines will give you the placement you deserve within their listings. Many merchants have no idea that the way in which a site is designed can actually make or break the sites usability in the end. Study what users in your niche want, give it to them and make it easy to understand, within a visible location that is easy for anyone to use.

Easier to Maintain Over Time:

If an eCommerce design is done correctly from the very beginning, it will make the task of design maintenance much easier over time. Typically, merchants will have to update their site regularly anyway, but using design best practices from the start will make you updates less frequent and easier to implement. not only that, but whenever new eCommerce design guidelines are discovered, you’ll find that it takes you less time and less steps to catch up with the pack, giving you more time to actually run the business, manage customers, products and things like marketing strategies or promotions. In short, make your site easy to discover, make it accessible to users and make it usable to anyone who may eventually land on your page. In the end, you’ll spend less time updating and maintaining your site than others who were not aware, ignored or didn’t pay close attention during the design and implementation phase of the business.

Dont’s

• Do not use multi-colored backgrounds with text that clashes with it- If you are using a dark colored background, use light colored text and visa versa.
• Do not use dark backgrounds and light text if you have alot of information to convey – Reading light text on a black background strains the eye.
• Do not use “rainbow text” (this would be having each letter a different color) – Another tough thing to read.
• Do not use allot of animation – Not only does this create a slower loading site, but if the visitor is going to be staying awhile, it gets annoying.
• Do not add several pop up ads for each page. They are irritating and will most likely drive the visitor away from your site.
• Do not put music on your site unless the vistor can turn it off – another annoying feature – I have been known to leave sites that have midis on them – after hearing “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” for the 100th time, I can’t take it anymore.
• Do not put huge photos on your page – create thumbnails for those who would like to view a larger version
• Do not use a million frames to cut up your page.
• Do not use obscure fonts – unless the visitor has the bubblegum font installed on his/her computer/ they will only see their default font
• If you need to use a unique font, create is as a graphic.
• Do not center align EVERYTHING on the site.

Go to Web Pages That Suck for the whole enchiladi. This is a great site to learn what NOT to do when designing your site.

Do’s:

• When designing business sites- use a white or subtle bordered background – It looks more professional
• Do keep a theme throughout the site – a logo and navigation on each page – This way the vistor knows he is still at the same site
• Do use the same font throughout the site – don’t use verdana on one page and arial on another
• Keep animation to a minimum – Use it to draw attention to special offers or information
• Do use browser safe colors whenever possible
• Do make your site browser compatible – do not use scripts, applets, DHTML, etc. that are only compatible with one browser
• If you use cutting edge technology, design a second site for those vistors who still have a an older browser
• Do keep your vistors in mind – Design the site for the people who are going to visit, not for yourself You might like bold, bright colors, but a funeral directors site should use subtle colors and hues
• Do use height and width tags for your images – this loads the page faster and also is useful to search engine spiders
• Do add proper navigation on each page – At the very least you should have a home button on each page
• The ideal is both text and graphic “toolbars” on each page so that a vistor can get to any page on your site.
• Do design for the “three click” theory – this means that any section of your site should only be 3 clicks away
• Do use a site map for complex sites – this way if your vistor gets lost, they can always go back home or to the site map
• Do have fun!

The above tips are things that I have learned through allot of reading, trial and tribulation. As I said earlier, my first site was a train wreck. Keep reading and learning and every site you design should be better than the last.

Once your website is ready and hosted, you just need to follow some simple steps to make your website known to the search engines.

You need to link your site with other websites relevant to your business.
Submit your website in Google Search Engine using following URLhttp://www.google.com/addurl.html

If you have sitemap in website, submit a sitemap in the part of Google webmaster tools. Google uses sitemap to learn about the structure of your website and to increase coverage of your web pages. It is suggested to have sitemap in your website as it is an important factor for Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

There are major directories available on internet such as the Open Directory Project and Yahoo as well as many product specific directories and country specific directories. Submitting website in such directories related to your product or service will definitely increase natural traffic to your website as well as it generate genuine business enquiry which is fruitful for your expansion of business worldwide. Submitting website in directories is an important part of Internet Marketing India.

There are following guidelines prepared by Google, need to consider while designing a website:

1.  Design and Content Guidelines
2. Technical Guidelines
3. Quality Guidelines

Google’s Design and Content Guidelines for Web Design

Design a user friendly website with easy navigation, text links and clear hierarchy which will help users to surf your site with fewer clicks. Keep atleast a single static text link to reach any page in the site. It increases viewer’s interest in your site and maintain interest to revisit.

Always prepare sitemap of your site. As sitemap contains all (link) information of your website, it helps in easy navigation and finds information quickly. It is considered as a guide of your site for visitors and Search Engines. If you have a wide website and your sitemap contains more than 100 links than it is advisable to split sitemap in more than one page.

Do not keep more than 100 links per page.
Make sure, the content of your site is appropriate to your product or services. Write clear and specific details for each web page. It is essential to write SEO copy writing to get good listing in SERP. Search engine always looks for new information and fresh content.

Include keywords and Key Phrases related to your product. Use the words which are used maximum by surfer to find your product. Use different keyword for each page relevant to the page content.

In all pages use descriptive and perfect Title; ALT and META tags related to page content.

For important keywords use text instead of images as Google crawler does not recognize text contained in images.

Remove all broken links.

Validate your pages using HTML validator for correct HTML syntax, these rules will help to show your site identical in any browser.

Be careful while design dynamic sites, be aware that not every search engine spider crawls dynamic pages.

Finally you are redesigning your Web site because your organization wants to increase sales and retain current customers. The best website designs are the one that take a company’s ideas and vision and portray in a way that is attractive, informative, easy to use and memorable. The features you add to your Website that really benefit your potential clients and current customers and ultimately benefit your business.

Google’s Technical Guidelines for Web Design

Once thorough with design and content guideline, you need to check your website technically.  Using technical guide you can check whether your site is SEO friendly or not.

Use Lynx or other text browser to check your web site. It is important to examine sites in text browser because search engine spiders understand only text. If fancy features such as JavaScript, cookies, session IDs, frames, DHTML, or Flash keep you from seeing your entire site in a text browser, then search engine spiders will have trouble crawling your site.

Dynamic pages use Session IDs and arguments in URL. Allow search bots to crawl your websites without session IDs or arguments that track their path through the site. These techniques are useful for tracking individual user behavior, but the access pattern of bots is entirely different. Using these techniques may result in incomplete indexing of your site, as bots may not be able to eliminate URLs that look different but actually point to the same page.

The web server in which your site hosted, make sure your web server supports the If-Modified-since HTTP header. This feature allows your web server to tell Google whether your content has changed since we last crawled your site. Supporting this feature saves you bandwidth and overhead.

Use of robots.txt is another important task for Search Engines. The robots.txt tells crawlers which directories can or cannot be crawled. Make sure it’s current for your site so that you don’t accidentally block the Googlebot crawler.  For more information about robots.txt, Visithttp://www.robotstxt.org/wc/faq.html  to learn how to instruct robots when they visit your site. You can test your robots.txt file to make sure you are using it correctly with the robots.txt analysis tool available in Google webmaster tools.

If you are using Content Management System (CMS), check that your CMS allows to export content so that search engine spiders can crawl your site.

Google’s Quality Guidelines for Web Design

Google has created rules and regulations to make sites more accessible and justify factual sites. The basic principle of Quality Guideline is to make website for users and not for search engines only. It only warns not to use any tricky or spam techniques or unethical SEO methods to get quick ranking.

There are two types of Quality guidelines:

1. Basic Principles of Quality Guidelines
2. Specific Quality Guidelines

Basic Principles of Quality Guidelines

Avoid using cloaking methods. In clocking method content are different to search engines than display to users.

Do not use tricks just to increase ranking in SERP.

Do not link your site to any unknown sites. It is very important because if the site which you link is black listed than your site is also be considered as spam. Also avoid participating in link schemes designed to increase site’s ranking or Page Rank.

If you are not familiar with web submitting tools software, try to avoid it as there are many unauthorized software which might harm your site. Such programs consume computing resources and violate Google’s Terms of Service.

Specific Quality Guidelines

Do not use hidden text or hidden links.

Hidden text are text that can not be seen by the visitor, hidden text is creating invisible text by making the font color similar to the background color. Hidden text is created for the purpose of adding keywords or key phrases for the search engines, SERP and rankings. Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) are also used to create hidden text using it’s built in features that can hide your text.

Avoid use of cloaking or sneaky redirects.

Cloaking is delivering pages designed for the search engines while providing people with different results. It is a technique wherein the content presented to the search engine is different from what is presented on the user. Today, cloaking is abused because it is used to trick search engine users.  Sneaky redirection means when a user click on a page and he got redirected to another page.

Don’t send automated queries to Google.

Use of unauthorized programs to check rankings, submit pages, etc violates Google terms of service, so it is advisable not to use it.

Don’t load pages with irrelevant keywords. 

Many SEO companies use irrelevant keywords or dump content with keywords. Search engine consider such pages as spam. Loading your page with irrelevant words can attract traffic but does not improve sales because you do not provide the essential information needed by the visitor.

Don’t create multiple pages, sub domains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.

Following techniques are consider as spam by search engines

• Page with Duplicate contents
• Mirror Sites – Two different sites with same content but different domains
• Sub domains – Generating Duplicate page using sub domains
• Redirect page to other domains

These techniques give instant results but expect to be banned when you get caught.

Don’t create pages that install viruses, Trojans, or other Badware.

Knowingly or unknowingly uploaded pages with virus or generate virus such as Trojan or malware will consider as spam by search engines.

Avoid “doorway” pages created just for search engines or other “cookie cutter” approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content.

Doorway pages are created to divert traffic to another page for specific keywords. Doorway pages are designed for search engines only and it is advisable to avoid because the visitors do not benefit from this practice as search engine consider it as spam.

If your site participates in an affiliate program, make sure that your site adds value. Provide unique and relevant content that gives users a reason to visit your site first.

Avoid participate on link schemes designed just to increase Page Rank, don’t exchange links with sites that are run by spammers, link farms,  adult sites and game or gambling sites. Avoid establishing link with sites with no or little content and made to increase rankings.

Use of ethical SEO methods will definitely help to increase your website ranking.  If a web designer follows Google guidelines for designing website it will give long term benefit. By using webmaster guidelines you can design user friendly web site as well as search engine friendly website.

1. Punch Line – DO take as much time as you can to come up with the right punch line on your banner. Try and look at it through the eyes of the end user. Can you come up with a line that you are sure will entice the user to go ahead and click on the button? Use it!

2. Excellent Copy – an effective banner needs to display good copy. Keep the text short and to the point. The more text you have in there, the more cluttered would the banner appear. This text should be supportive of your punch line, and be along the same lines but maybe a little more descriptive of what the user can expect after clicking on the link.

3. Use Relevant Content – Your banner needs to display relevant content, period! You may be tempted to use images of skimpily clad women to entice the user to click on your banner! But what good would even that click do, if your web site is aimed at selling electronic goods? So keep it relevant, and avoid such short cuts.

4. Use a Logo and a Site URL – If you are focusing on brand building, why not use both logo and url in your banner? Don’t make them too large though – both can be sized down to a corner of the banner – you need the space for your tag line and copy!

5. Use Cliches – A simplistic phrase such as ‘click here’ is what works at the end of the day, and you can find relevant statistics if you put it to the test. Make sure the phrase is displayed for at least two or three seconds on your banner. You could use it as the last frame in an animation.

6. The File Size – You need to keep the k size as low as possible. The reason is banners should be the first element to load on your page. The banner being right on top, you want the viewers to see it before they scroll down to the rest of the page.

7. The Length of Animated Banners – Studies show us that the average user spends no more than ten seconds looking at a banner. You need to show all you want to show through your animation in about 7 or 8 seconds at a maximum! If you action call (click here) shows up AFTER this time period, chances are the banner would lose its efficiency.

8. To Animate or Not to Animate – Animated banners can get you something like a 30% higher click rate! The disadvantage is animated banners are of larger k sizes. You can minimize this by using fewer colors!

9. Using Flash – Flash can add a huge potential to your banner design skills. Flash banners are any day smoother than GIF animations. Moreover, the file sizes are smaller as well.

10. Blue Underlines – Web users relate blue underlined text to links, so you may want to underline the text that says ‘click here’